Tuesday August 20th Saint Petersburg, Russia
We rehearsed at 9 am. I was exhausted to say the least with only 4 hours of sleep! We ran the show and then we were allowed to go off the ship. I went with Era (Erica), we went through passport control, not part of the EU and of course I am American anyway! Took the shuttle bus to take us to the town center. We drove through terrible blocks of apartments rather like the view we get from the train going into London, not showing the city off to its best advantage! Everything looked so run down and dull. I noticed that the stop-lights are matte green and the city looks as if it needed a good dust!
We walked around for a couple of hours, saw some sights,
surprisingly enough, everything was in Russian, so we didn’t have any clue as to what we were looking at most of the time.
This is the Winter Palace!
But hey ho, it was pretty anyway.
The fashion is different here, almost every girl was wearing heels, it didn’t matter what clothes they had on, they had heels with them.
There were trolleys and bikes everywhere. I saw a Carl’s Junior!
I posed on a bridge over the River Neva!
We went to McDonalds, the Golden Arches are in every city, to get free wifi. We sat in the very busy restaurant for 2 hours online. It was relaxing. I had chicken nuggets and mayonnaise and snapped this sign for a hamburger,
The McMeny’s get everywhere!
Then we rushed to try to catch the shuttle bus, and it literally pulled out just as we got there. We had to wait an hour for the next one. It was okay though because we got to sit and enjoy Saint Isaacs Cathedral.
It took us a while to get back home, I just used “home” for the ship! We had to wait in line at passport control again and once we were back on board, we all went to sleep exhausted. I woke up to have a bit of dinner and then got ready for Mitos, the name of one of the shows, remember? My performance was all right, the 2nd one of the evening was better, but then it always is.
We had posh dinner, salmon…and then we did Carnival. It was supposed to be a pool party but because it was raining we did it in the Fermentera (one of the passenger bars). I enjoyed myself this week, I went as a cowgirl again, it’s easy, denim shorts, top and cowgirl hat, with my long blonde hair, Yee Haw!
Erika, Me, Norbi, Bori
The dances we initiated were Gangnam Style, Burrito, Limbo and salsa lines. It was a lot of fun this week, the party spirit was high!
When all the festivities were over we stayed to listen to Javier sing. He is very talented.
I told you we had found a gecko the other day in the corridor; I found out today that it is still alive in Erika’s cabin. She had it in a container with a piece of apple and water. They set him free tonight in Russia!
Wednesday August 21st Saint Petersburg, Russia
I had planned to go out today with Sergi, one of the Russian speakers, so he could translate for me. I wanted to see some more sights and use the Internet again. However, I have just woken up, it is 530pm. I guess I really needed the sleep, because I didn’t wake up once. It was very blissy! However, I am sad I missed a day of sightseeing, and I didn’t even have color. We will be in Russian again next week so I’ll have a chance to go out then!
I went to have dinner, cleaned my cabin and then we had rehearsals. We learnt some easy dances for Radio Show, so now I know the majority of the numbers, not all of them yet, but a lot.
Tonight was Jazz night in the Barcolina bar. The saxophonist is amazing, his name is Ariel. In the crew bar later I had a very interesting conversation with Roman (dancer) and Claudio (2nd officer). The place was very busy and they were playing Jenifer Lopez music, people were dancing. Tonight we go back an hour.
Mum wrote to me and in her email she wrote,
“I love you and am so proud of you, all this change must be tough but heck, you’ll get awfully strong!!”
There is a new sign outside of the staff mess that says,
“Tough times don’t last, tough people do.” Coincidence huh?
The amount of people that have asked me to explain what the word “toog-ue” means, they find English hard to pronounce sometimes, which it is! It has two different meanings in that sentence and, haha, it is very tough for me to explain the whole meaning! I really have to think! They are testing my English here, I find myself grasping for words they may understand and then they come out with words that I rarely use that they may have heard from an old movie!
I am happy to say no-one chomps when they eat around me, there are too many other things going on, never complete silence like at home sometimes, especially at the meal table…so I can never hear others chewing their food and crunching their crisps.
I do miss Starbucks, but this is much better for me! Of course, the born performer!
Well hello there! My name is Vivienne McNeny.
I am an empty nester exploring life as a Boomer…you could say I'm happily Boomering along!
As a homeschooling Mum I have finally quit the job of role model and mentor to my four children. I do what I want to do, eat when I feel like it, enjoy life with my blue eyed cowboy and clean my house once a month or so whether it needs it or not!
In true English form I write about the emergence of my true identity now that I can no longer hide behind my children as their Mum.
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